Pumbaa, Timon and Simba in a scene from Disney’s 1994 animation of the Lion King, which featured the song Hakuna Matata.
Photograph: Walt disney/AF archive/Alamy Stock Photo

More than 50,000 people have signed a petition accusing Disney of “colonialism and robbery” after it trademarked the Swahili phrase “hakuna matata”.

The expression means “no problem” in Swahili, which is spoken across east Africa and is a national language of Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The petition, which calls on Disney to drop its trademark, precedes the release of the company’s motion capture remake of The Lion King next summer, which will be voiced by Beyoncé, Donald Glover and Chiwetel Ejiofor.

The phrase was popularised in 1982 by the Kenyan band Them Mushrooms, whose platinum-selling single Jambo Bwana (Hello, Mister) featured the phrase “hakuna matata”. It was later featured in the 1994 version of the Lion King, which spawned a hit musical and became one of Disney’s most valuable franchises. The film included the song Hakuna Matata, written by Elton John and Tim Rice.

Disney was granted a US trademark in 2003, protecting use of the phrase on clothing or footwear.

Shelton Mpala, who created the petition, accused the company of appropriation. “Disney can’t be allowed to trademark something that it didn’t invent,” he wrote. The petition has so far been signed by more than 52,000 people.

Professor Kimani Njogu, who chairs the creative economy working group, which aims to advance cultural and linguistic rights in Kenya, suggested Disney’s trademark was unethical. “These big companies located in the north are taking advantage of cultural expressions and lifestyles and cultural goods coming from Africa.

“They know very well that this expression is really the people’s property, created by people, popularised by people,” said Njogu, founder of Twaweza Communications, a thinktank that specialises in public policy, media and culture.

Hakuna matata is more than just an expression, added Njogu. “[Them Mushrooms] made hakuna matata a lifestyle – of fun, of leisure, of happiness.”

The phrase is popular across east Africa, with merchandise featuring the phrase sold to tourists. It is unfair, Njogu added, that Kenyans are not able to sell such goods in the US.

“I see the petition as not just a challenge to Disney but also to jurisdictions in the north,” he said.

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Njogu added that such countries should ask: “Is it ethical to appropriate products that come from the south, in Africa, and appropriate those, without the creators of those products benefiting – or without the permission of those who created the products in the first place?”

The trademark has prompted calls for African governments to do more to protect heritage and culture. Writing in Business Daily Africa, Cathy Mputhia, a lawyer based in Kenya, said: “It is unfortunate that there has been a lot of pilferage of African culture over the years, through the use of intellectual property rights.” Government agencies such as Brand Kenya should do more to protect indigenous slogans, she added.

Njogu said the Kenyan government should build a database of cultural expressions that could be trademarked: “We [should] start by collecting all the expressions, putting them together and then of course having the law that stipulates who the custodians of these cultural expressions should be.”

Disney previously dropped attempts to trademark the traditional Mexican Day of the Dead festival following angry protests online. The studio had applied to trademark the term “Dia de los Muertos” for merchandising purposes before the release of the Pixar animation Coco. At the time, Disney said that it had changed the title of the film and would therefore no longer be pursuing efforts to trademark the term.